Space Cowboy
by Writer Awakened
Summary: Spike hits a bar and is hit by a blast from the past. Short, random, and set in space.


_Space Cowboy_

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Author's Note: Because the real world (and especially the future…_in space_!!!) is so fun, you gotta work in a Steve Miller reference somewhere…space cowboy. Short and random. Oh, and I'm not Steve Miller.

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Down on Mars, it was always busy, and the city was no quieter the day that Spike stepped onto its fair red ground to look for a drink. Jet had made it perfectly, perfectly clear that they were heading out in exactly one hour—_exactly_!—, a nugget of wisdom which Spike, as usual, had failed to hear. He's a joker, he's a smoker—well, you know how they say.

A few of the bars Spike ambled around to were closed, with one of his favorite little smoky corners boarded up, a sign hanging on its door reading "Out of Business: No business! None of our old regulars come around, no thanks to S.S. –The Management". Spike chuckled walkin' by it, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Always something, Spike figured. On his way by he had broken the very edge of the sign off, so that it now read "…no thanks to S.S. The man". Fitting, he supposed, considering there was always someone, someone trying to keep him down. A few of the other places were either closed or shut down, and at last Spike resorted to his last little place, a bar with personality, but a whole lot of people you wouldn't want lookin' at you while you were drinkin'.

Spike turned down a few alleys with all the rusted old dumpsters, and passed a side street where several kids scurried off at the sight of him (and, most likely, his "walkin' smile" face, which looked something like a gorilla who'd had all his bananas stolen from him under his nose). They were nice-lookin' alleys, don't get him wrong, but Spike couldn't help but think that if he were a kid in a dump like this place, he probably wouldn't be hanging out in the alley. Then again, kids these days were stupid.

After a few minutes, he had reached the familiar alley where all the strange shops sat in the back of civilization and did God-knows-what with their merchandise, and Spike smiled, 'cuz he knew he was almost home. Halfway to the door of the bar where the creaky wooden sign hanging with the crudely-drawn babe and the words "Shake Your Tree" written on it, then Spike started hearin' the footsteps of someone trying to speak up on him quietly behind him. He smiled and chuckled to himself. He walked a little bit slower until he could hear that the guy was riiiiight behind him, then he whirled around, elbowed his would-be assailant in the solar plexus, then smashed his head downwards, and the guy crumbled onto the ground.

"Auuuugh! Wh-whooooa, what the hell was that for?"

Spike crossed his arms as the man in the dirty rags clutched his head, slowly rising to his knees.

"Well, I should ask you what you were doing behind me," Spike said, clearly amused. "If you were trying to pickpocket me, you did a pretty bad job of it. Unless you were lookin' for a fight and just wanted to get the jump?"

"Whoooo-hell nooooo," the man said, howling now. "Hoo hoo, I wasn't looking for no fight, I was just looking to sell you, uh, some seedys! Yes, some top-o'-the-line seedys!" The man rose to his feet, and Spike saw a scarred face with a mouthful of crooked teeth and an oily rag for a shirt.

"What the hell are 'seedys'?" Spike said, again wondering if it was the fate of bounty hunters to be pestered by run-down, turn-around, oily alley-urchins, who apparently doubled as salesmen.

"Y'know, seedys!", the man said, smiling, and he laughed—well, tried to laugh, but it more came out as a wheeze, and he ended up coughing, but eventually he stood up and gave a really phony smile, still looking to sell the deal. "Er, seedys! Y'know, them things from back in the—in the—in the—uh…"

"Past?"

"In the long-ago-time!" the man said, and he wagged his finger. "You know, the things you can play music on! Wait…don't I know you? Coulda sworn I seen you somewheres…"

Spike shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, "But I really don't have time to mess around with you. Oh, and you wanted a fight?" Without any semblance of warning, Spike nailed the guy with a kick to the gut and a sucker punch to the face, and he went flying down, mumbling something about good deals and high heels.

"There's your fight," Spike said, and he walked on into the bar.

-

The tiny, dark, lousy-jazz-standard-jukebox-music-playing bar was just as he remembered it: tiny, dark, and lousy-jazz-standard-jukebox-music-playing. It also sucked. But hell, if it was the only place he could get a drink, he would manage. Spike sat down at the bar, a small curving piece of polished wood. The bartender was apparently in the back room. The chair to his right and to his left were empty, but further down the end, one guy sat slumped over, either sleeping or dead in front of a full mug of frosty beer, and another guy was to that guy's left, crying into a full mug of frosty beer. Spike shook his head. What a waste. Behind him there were a couple of tables with a couple of chairs by each, and at the end of the bar opposite the door—and it wasn't very far, hell, it was a really small bar—sat two men in chairs at a table, drinking, looking like intergalactic truckers who apparently were fond of wearing orange-colored leather jackets. One had his back to Spike; he could see the word "love" stitched onto the back of his jacket. Huh, Spike was thinkin' to himself, snorting. Just a gangster. A gangster of love. Behind them was a jukebox and next to that, the can. The song that had been playing had just ended and another one had started, different style, something very old—centuries old—but it had a nice beat.

_They say I'm doing you wro-ong…_

Spike turned back to the bar and looked ahead. "_Don't worry, don't worry_", the song said. Spike chortled. "Don't worry"? Very funny.

He sighed. Still no one had come to ask him what he wanted. He would have had half a mind to yell for someone to come over, but instead he had a whole mind, so he leaned his head against his elbow and sat quietly for about ten minutes until finally decided to screw it and mix himself up a drink in the ship. He hoped, in doing so, that Ed wouldn't randomly run over and start singing "drinkie, drinkie, having a drinkie—ooh, what is it today, is it tehhh-key-la? Orrrrr, is it rum-rum-rum-rum-rum-rum"—and at about this time Spike would yell at her to shut up. Spike took a long chug from the sleeping (dead?) man's mug, and moseyed on out the door, retracing his steps down the alley. He was about to turn down another long and winding road when he felt a hand on his shoulder and almost jumped, startled.

"What the f—"

"Whoa, whoa there! Cool it, Maurice!" A familiar voice. Spike looked at the strange guy from before.

"You again? What now? And why'd you call me Maurice?"

"What?" the man said, smiling his crooked teeth. "Maurice! That's who you are, I remember now! You know, 'cause you spoke of the pompatus of love! Heeeeey, I just wanted to give you something, that's all, you know, fer all the…the…the, uh—"

"Inconvenience?"

"Yeah, that's the ticket! Anyway, I got somethings for you!" The strange man rifled through his pockets and found something strange, a small rectangular object with a white label and two holes, and inside seemed to be wired a long, long strand of film.

"What's this?"

"This is an, uh—a case-it tape!" the man said, smiling, laughing, wheezing. "It plays music too. Something to remember me by!"

"What's your name?" Spike asked.

"Me? My name's Steve, don't you remember, Maurice? I used to be a performer back in my day, but, you know, then they did all the gee-netics experimentatation and then I started getting all weird and I lost my singing vo—"

Spike punched the guy in the face again and walked away, pocketing the tape. When he arrived back at the _Bebop_ (incidentally, fifty-eight minutes after he had left, which would explain why Jet wasn't bitching at him), he fixed himself a drink, sat down on one of the worn-out moth-eaten poor excuses for couches they called couches, and pulled out the tape. Spike read the writing on the white paper label.

("Steve Miller Band, _–The Joker-_"), it read.

"Huh," Spike said. He took a drink of his drink—extra hard—and tossed the tape away behind his back. "Got nothin' to do with me."

_-See you, Space Cowboy…_


End file.
